Park Clashes With Moon Over South Korea Economy Before Election

Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- South Korea’s main opposition
presidential candidate accused front-runner Park Geun Hye of
failing to take responsibility for her ruling party’s oversight
of an economy hindered by slowing growth and rising inflation.

In the second of three debates before the Dec. 19 election,
the Democratic United Party’s Moon Jae In said today the
administration of outgoing President Lee Myung Bak had failed to
fulfill its economic pledges.

“Everything, including economic growth, balanced regional
development, inter-Korean relations, democracy and national
security, has fallen apart while household debt and inflation
rose,” Moon said in the televised debate in Seoul. Park in
turned blamed the “ill-designed policies” of Lee’s predecessor
Roh Moo Hyun, whom Moon served under as chief of staff.

While Lee’s popularity has fallen by more than half amid
public discontent with growing inflation and a widening income
gap, Park has maintained her lead in the polls to govern Asia’s
fourth biggest economy. The daughter of former dictator Park
Chung Hee is attempting to become South Korea’s first-ever
female president.

Today’s debate took place as North Korea extended its time
frame for a rocket launch this month. Both Moon and Park have
pledged to re-engage with Kim Jong Un’s totalitarian state,
rejecting Lee’s isolationist stance, regardless of whether North
Korea fires the rocket in defiance of international pressure.

Park’s approval rating was at 50.6 percent while support
for Moon stood at 43.8 percent, according to a daily poll
published today by Realmeter and JTBC, a cable television
affiliate of the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. The Dec. 8-9 survey of
2,000 people had a 2.2 percentage-point margin of error.

South Korea is unlikely to meet the central bank’s growth
estimate of 2.4 percent for this year, Bank of Korea Director
Jung Yung Taek told reporters in Seoul on Dec. 6. While there
are signs of improvement, with exports rising the most in nine
months from a year earlier in November, Jung said the expansion
will “not be strong” in the fourth quarter.